Lord Moylan: My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Eaton. I listened very carefully to what my noble friend the Minister said about protections and safeguards offered by the NHS, and the system of abortion provision to young people. But it seemed to me that those safeguards related principally to pregnant children up to the age of 16. There is a gap here, because the age of 18 is important in this debate, and it does not seem to be covered. As the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, said, it was only last night that an opposition amendment said that, in the case of child refugees, the Government must give priority to the best interests of the child—and, as I recall, that amendment was passed and is now back in the Bill. But “child” was defined in the amendment as a person under the age of not 16 but 18. So the best interests of the refugee child must take priority but the best interests of the pregnant child are not even mentioned anywhere in the amendment.
If I recall correctly, only last week we were debating a Private Member’s Bill—but one which I believe had government support—which would raise the permitted age of marriage to 18. Marriage is a natural law right, and also arguably a convention right, because there is a right to a family life, but, correctly, we are allowed to moderate how that right is implemented and affected by putting age restrictions on it. We may decide that 16 is an appropriate age or that 18 is an appropriate age; these are all perfectly legitimate decisions to make. But if our movement is in the direction of saying that 18 is the age at which you should be allowed to marry, it seems to me that there is a huge gap in the amendment in Motion N, which my noble friend Lady Eaton is doing her best to correct.
I regret that my noble friend has said that she is not going to move to a vote, so I am left to ask my noble friend the Minister whether he can explain to me, when he replies, what it is that the Government see as being the means of safeguarding pregnant children between the ages of 16 and 18, who are regarded so carefully in relation to other types of protection that are debated in this House and command widespread cross-party support but seem to have fallen through the traps here.